


Bonus: Russian Orphans

by wheel_pen



Series: Darkwood Eastport [33]
Category: Sherlock (TV), The Unusuals
Genre: F/M, Kid Fic, M/M, Magic, Polygamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-02 02:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4041622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Russia’s overburdened state childcare system has decided to transfer its 150,000+ children to the custody of Darkwood Valley. A couple scenes from the dock at St. Petersburg on the first day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bonus: Russian Orphans

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored; that’s just how I do things. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe. I’ve given a lot of thought to the Darkwood culture, so if something seems confusing, feel free to ask. I hope you enjoy!

Sherlock stood still off to the side on the dock, intently watching the children creep onto the ship in the early-morning gloom. They would need to get some lights strung up in here, he thought, in the shelter they’d made with large blue sheets on frames, and a canopy. It was just a bit too dark. They had only just begun this business, though, opening the gate at the dock at six AM—there were bound to be a few unexpected hitches.

John walked up to him, draining the last of his coffee, trying to conceal his nervous energy. “About time, then, is it?” he asked after a moment, casually.

Sherlock glanced at the digital clock affixed to the side of the ship. “Nearly. Unless they’re running late,” he added darkly.

“They’ve not said they’re running late, have they?” John checked, and this time Sherlock just glanced at him. Of course John would’ve heard such an announcement at the same time Sherlock would—but there had been none.

Static crackled suddenly in their earpieces. “ _Railroad Team_ ,” alerted the coordinator. You could tell who was on the Railroad Team just by glancing around the dock—they were the ones who had suddenly frozen in place, tense with anticipation. “ _First train confirmed on time. ETA six minutes. Begin preparations_.”

Sherlock and John did not have any preparations to begin, except mentally. Others, however, were pushing ramps and wheelchairs and carts to the edge of the barrier. Sherlock was already standing in the best place to watch the train from—right at the corner of the barrier, on the far side of a school bus engine, out of the way of the people helping children with crutches and leg braces exit the bus and roll towards the ship. He could just see the railroad entrance to the dock from here, its gate already open. There was a curve in the track beyond the gate, however, so the actual train was still not in view.

The bus engine roared to life beside him suddenly and he glanced up at the driver in irritation. It was a servant, who only acknowledged him with a bland nod, then expertly wheeled the bus sideways and drove on past the barrier, over the railroad tracks to the parking lot beyond.

A train whistled in the distance. “ _Train approaching_ ,” the coordinator warned them unnecessarily. “ _Traffic across the tracks ceases_.” One last truck squeaked over the tracks; another one, too slow, parked placidly in the open space beside the two lanes of traffic. Vehicles would be building up there while Sherlock and his team worked on the railway cars; of course no one was in danger of being run over, not with the servants driving everything, but theoretically if this temporary lot filled up, no more children would be unloaded from vehicles, and efficiency would plummet. Couldn’t have that.

Suddenly the train appeared from the morning mist, a dingy grey. They didn’t have trains in the Valley, but everyone on the Railroad Team had studied diagrams and videos extensively. This was a passenger train from Moscow, one of many they would be receiving today. It had been given special permission to use the tracks at the dock, which were normally reserved for cargo trains. At one point, Sherlock had heard, there was talk of transferring the children from passenger trains to cargo containers at the main railway station, for their short trip to the dock. He was glad _that_ had been ultimately rejected.

They had been warned repeatedly about the noise but it was still deafening as the train rolled through the gate, screeching its brakes to slow down. There were markers on the tracks of where they should stop, and someone directing them on the ground as well. They couldn’t get permission for a servant to take over the driving of the train on the dock—or however you termed it—so they actually had to communicate with the original engineers. The engine went past the ship—Sherlock left the shelter of the barricade to watch—and stopped at its designated point, lining up the first three cars in just the right spot.

“ _Railroad Team, extend the barricade_ ,” the coordinator ordered, and Sherlock sprang into action, going through the motions they had practiced endlessly. He took his position near a pole in the frame of the blue barricade, the one that separated the pedestrian zone before the ship from the area where cars could pass to the parking lot. Each person gripped and lifted and walked the barricade away, opening it like a door and enlarging the pedestrian-only zone. Sherlock was on the part that reached down to the end of the third car; vehicles stopped short on the other side, in their temporary parking lot. John, he knew, worked on the other flap, the one that reached the beginning of the first car. Someone else was guiding the canopy over their heads all the way to the train. Now when the children exited the train, they could walk straight to the boat en masse, protected from the chill wind, any rain that might descend, and the threat of vehicles.

“ _Move ramps into place_ ,” Sherlock heard in his ear, but that wasn’t directed at him. His job was to move the barricade and enter the railway cars; others handled the ramps and carts. “ _Barricade extended_ ,” the coordinator announced, and Sherlock immediately stepped back and headed for the first car. Maybe he should be helping to move the same barricade John was, which was closer to the car he’d be working in. He hoped someone had noticed this slight awkwardness and would be correcting it.

A ramp had been placed at each of the two exits on this side of the car, which would smoothly cover the stairs once those doors were opened and allow the passengers to exit more quickly and safely. Sherlock squeezed in between the ramp and the door; they had to roll the ramp back a bit, another awkwardness. John appeared at his side and when he looked down the outside of the car he saw Sandy and Paul waiting at the other door. “ _Proceed onto cars_ ,” the coordinator said, and Sherlock pushed the door open and hopped up the stairs.

The air on the train was stale and dry, and smelled vaguely of soap and fried foods. There were certainly worse things it could have smelled of, he decided, as he stepped into the small space at the head of the aisle. John slipped in behind him, blocking the other exit at this end, which would have dumped the children into the parking lot. Sherlock stared out over a sea of curious faces and for a moment was utterly lost. Then his training snapped into place and he began assessing.

“Car 1,” he murmured in Common Tongue. “Mostly older teens.”

“ _Copy, Car 1_ ,” replied the coordinator.

“I’m Sherlock Ivanov,” he announced more loudly, in Russian. They’d been told to use Russian-sounding aliases, at least for their surnames, to avoid confusion. His eyes darted over each group of seats. “Is there anyone in charge here?” As he spoke his gaze alighted on a middle-aged woman in a nun’s habit, seated halfway down the aisle. He was not surprised when she stood and he headed down the aisle towards her, making sure to watch his feet—tripping over something as all these eyes watched him would not be good.

“I am Sister Maria Veronika,” she told him with sober dignity, and he bowed slightly to her.

Then he pulled his small tablet from his pocket. “You’re from St. Sebastian’s in Moscow?” he double-checked, and she nodded. For a millisecond Sherlock considered small talk. Then he decided it would be more respectful to just get on with it, and not waste time. He knew the questions to ask by heart, of course, but found himself glancing at the tablet’s screen for guidance anyway. “About how many children are on this car?”

“About one hundred.”

He circled the answer with his stylus. “Are any of them under the age of five?”

“No.”

“Do any of them have mobility issues? Wheelchair, crutches, leg braces, anything that would make them walk more slowly, or need help walking?” he elaborated.

He could see the answer was going to be yes. “Yes, there are four,” the nun told him. She seemed slightly hesitant. “They walk _pretty_ well, and we didn’t have more room on the car with the—“

He let her stop on her own, then jumped in. “I understand. Those four will need to wait until the others have left, then we’ll help them off.” He waited until she nodded. “They’re to carry no bags with them, we’ll take it to the ship later,” he went on. He’d noticed a few suitcases littering the floor and overhead racks. “They should wear their coats, though, it’s cold out. Do they all have coats?”

The nun drew herself up a bit and Sherlock made a mental note that this part of the script needed revision. “They all have proper clothing,” Sister Maria Veronika informed him. It was an insult to think otherwise.

Sherlock tried to move past that. “When I say, they’re to walk out the doors on _this_ side,” he went on, pointing. “Front or back, whichever’s closer. Head toward the ship, follow the arrows. The dogs will help guide them. You’re invited onto the ship as well,” he told her. “To wait.” Not all of the children surrounding him would be coming to the Valley. Some, those deemed unsuitable by the servants, would be heading back to Moscow.

The nun nodded her understanding of his instructions and Sherlock walked back to the head of the car. He saw now that all the teens _did_ have coats, and hats and scarves, and rather smart uniforms. St. Sebastian’s was one of the better, private orphanages. The teens were quite well-behaved as well, only whispering a bit, and even this stopped when he turned to face them.

“You’re to walk out the doors on _this_ side,” he repeated more loudly, again pointing. “Head for the ship, follow the arrows. Bring your coats, leave your bags.” There were some murmurings at this. “We’ll collect them after,” he added. “ _Ramp teams, are you ready?_ ” he checked in Common.

“ _Ramp teams ready_ ,” someone replied. Sherlock made eye contact with John behind him, then scrutinized the occupants of the first two seats on each side.

“Alright, you can go,” he told them, stepping past them down the aisle. He heard Sandy telling the first ones on her end they could go also. “You’ll be next,” he warned the next pair of seats, who were hurriedly pulling on their coats.

The noise level rose as the teens began to stand and ready themselves, chattering nervously. Sherlock dismissed the next seats, trying to keep the flow out the door steady. He felt sorry for the children, at this moment—they didn’t know if they were going to Darkwood Valley or not yet, and they didn’t really know which to hope for, either. _Sherlock_ knew that if they were accepted, they would most likely have wonderful lives—families to love them, education, plenty of food, freedom from crime. Freedom from the fear of wondering what was going to happen when you got too old for the children’s home and had to go out on your own. But _they_ didn’t know this. They’d been _told_ it, certainly, but that was far different from knowing it to be true, and there were so many uncertainties ahead for them.

He started to dismiss the next seat and noticed one of the girls had her foot propped up on the opposite seat, wrapped in a bandage. Her fingers twitched around a crutch. “You can go,” he told the others, then caught the injured girl’s eye. “You’ll need to stay behind, until the end,” he warned her, and she nodded; he hoped the nun had been around explaining things.

The girl looked like she was about to cry, though. “Don’t worry,” Sherlock tried to tell her. “You _will_ get on the boat. You’ll get a chance to see if you can go to the Valley,” he added quickly, for clarity. She didn’t look comforted and he stepped into her aisle to dismiss the seat behind her. “What’s your name?”

“Raisa,” she answered tremulously.

Sherlock signaled for the next seat to leave. “And how old are you, Raisa?”

“Fifteen.”

The next seat was dismissed. He and Sandy were about to meet in the middle. “How long have you been at St. Sebastian’s?”

“Four years. My mother, she—she disappeared one day,” Raisa blurted, “and my father said he couldn’t raise me on his own. So he told me to leave.”

Gritting his teeth Sherlock dismissed the last seat in his half. They knew, doing this task, that they would hear unpleasant things about what had happened to the children; and Raisa’s story, if complete, was milder than many. But it was a hard thing to contemplate anyway. “In the Valley, all the children are loved and wanted,” he told her, trying to soften his tone. He stepped back. “Come on, you can get up now,” he encouraged. “Walk towards the door, take your time.”

He stepped into another seat to allow another teen on crutches to hobble past; the remaining two were closer to the back and were exiting that way. He followed Raisa slowly up the aisle and watched her hesitate at the top of the ramp. “Go on, you’ll be safe,” he promised, and she wobbled out. At the bottom of the ramp someone was waiting with a wheelchair, to whisk her off to the ship.

_Raisa, 15, from first car of the day, Moscow St. Sebastian’s_ , he scribbled on his tablet. _Crutch, wrapped left ankle._ There was a tacit expectation that those who’d helped on this voyage would get first pick of the children when they got home, so he was making a list of possibilities. Irene liked lists. He wasn’t saying for sure he’d go for Raisa, but it was easy to be overwhelmed by all the young faces—any that stood out, however briefly, should be noted, he felt.

Sherlock stepped back and gestured for Sister Maria Veronika to leave the car, then he and John followed suit, their boots catching on the rough surface of the ramp. “Car 1, final sweep,” he requested.

“ _Car 1 is clear_ ,” the coordinator announced. There were no more people on board, and the servants had instantaneously gathered up all personal belongings and transported them to the ship for distribution. Neat trick, that.

It took Sherlock a moment to realize he’d successfully completed his first railroad car—then he turned and looked at John and they both got silly little grins of relief on their faces. Only for a moment, though, because their job was far from being over. The other two cars seemed to be finishing up as well—Car 2 also had teenagers in it, Sherlock estimated, and Car 3 preteens. It didn’t seem like they needed any help unloading them. A well-funded and well-run place like St. Sebastian’s would of course organize all the children like they’d been told to, by age group with the youngest and those with mobility issues in their own car, probably positioned last in the line.

Of course, horrible things could be going on behind the scenes at St. Sebastian’s; and even if they weren’t, most of the kids would have plenty of other bad memories to keep them up at night. For Sherlock it was impossible to imagine growing up without a family, even if you’d managed to land in a decent orphanage. Of course it was also impossible for him to imagine being an only child or spending one’s whole life with only one spouse, neither of which were necessarily tragic circumstances.

“ _All cars are clear_ ,” the coordinator announced in Sherlock’s ear. “ _Take positions on the barricades for full retraction_.” Once the children were clear, the barricades would be retracted to allow cars to pass, apparently, though this was an alternate version of the plan; best case, they would retract the barricades just enough to let the train move without fear they’d be caught on it, then immediately extend them back into place for the next three railway cars. But it seemed like enough vehicles had built up outside the barricade that they needed to let them go on to the real parking lot first.

Of course it had been impossible to predict what kind of turnout this project would get; they knew when the buses from local orphanages were scheduled to arrive, but they had no idea if private citizens would get into the act or not. Many of the Darkwood adults had rather conflicted feelings about that—you hated to see parents giving up their children, of course, but on the other hand, if a parent volunteered to give up their children for nothing in return, you knew there had to be something seriously wrong at home, and the children were almost certainly better off in the Valley.

Sherlock didn’t feel very conflicted on that score. That was probably why he’d been assigned to the Railroad Team, instead of interfacing with the public. He just wouldn’t have had the tact necessary to reassure guilt-stricken parents or persuade recalcitrant ones; he’d be too busy snatching the children from the cars and making a run for it. Not really what they wanted the news cameras to catch them doing, since a number of people apparently thought that was what they were doing _anyway_.

He helped fold the barricade back up and took the opportunity to squeeze out and see how many vehicles had been stuck in the temporary parking lot. The number impressed him—a lot of buses and vans, but also small cars and trucks that could only have held a few kids each. Not an efficient way for an institution to transport kids—more likely an individual. It also spoke well of the unloading skill of those working with the vehicles, he thought—he wanted to run to the upper deck of the ship and try to see what kind of line had formed outside the dock, since the traffic _inside_ was still bumper to bumper, but then the coordinator’s crisp tones summoned him to action again.

The train rolled forward, taking the three empty cars away and bringing three new ones into place. Sherlock’s car was technically number four on the train, but it was in the number one spot of three active cars, so they still referred to it as this. He felt less tense as he bounded onto the car this time, which was good because it was filled with about a hundred nine- and ten-year-olds, whose owlish gazes and constant chittering were somehow more intimidating than the teenagers’ had been. And were they deliberately always putting the girls at the front, and the boys at the back? Girls seemed to have far more pointed, judgmental expressions than boys did.

“I’m Sherlock Ivanov,” he announced to the car. “Who’s in charge here?” There were several adult-types in this car; authority seemed to rest with an elderly priest, Father Mikhail. As before Sherlock entered the man’s answers onto his tablet—about a hundred children total, no young ones, and just a handful who walked a little slower than the rest. Sherlock went over the instructions, talking a bit more loudly so Father Mikhail, as well as a couple of the other adults nearby, could hear him. This time he didn’t ask if they had coats, just mentioned in passing that they would be needed. John and Paul would be double-checking the kids as they left anyway.

Then Sherlock went back to the head of the aisle. “You’re to walk out the door on _this_ side,” he instructed loudly. “Follow the arrows, head for the ship. Leave your bags, we’ll bring them later.” The ramp team was ready and he nodded at Sandy in the back, then looked down at the girls in the front seats. “Are you ready to go? Come on, out the door. Put your coat on.” He felt a bit naggy saying that—his policy was, if they’ve got the coat with them, they’ll either learn to button up or learn to like the cold—but honestly the child just had the thing stuffed carelessly under her arm.

“Stop, come over here,” John was telling another one, pulling her aside as Sherlock tried to dismiss the next set. “Tie your shoe. Well, at least tuck the laces in. Alright, off you go.”

“Look, you’re going to be next, so put your coat on and get ready,” Sherlock prompted the third seat. “Come on now, quit dawdling,” he encouraged the ones who were already supposed to be moving. “Look, there’s hot food on the ship,” he bribed. “Hot chocolate and sticky buns. So get a move on.” He dismissed the third seat to goose the second along and they promptly all tried to leave at once.

“No shoving,” ordered John firmly. “Form a line, you go first. No, you stay back here. There’s no need to shove, you’ll all get there.”

“Put that suitcase down,” Sherlock told one little girl, who was taking up about three times the space she should be, lugging the case around.

“But it’s mine,” she protested. “I don’t want to forget it.”

Sherlock guided her into a seat, freeing the aisle for the other children. “We’ll bring it to you,” he promised her. “It will probably be in your room before _you_ are.”

“It hasn’t got my name on it,” she countered. “You won’t know where to send it.” She didn’t seem argumentative or bratty; he could imagine that the suitcase, battered and faded, contained all she owned in the world, and she was loathe to give it up.

“Well that was a bit silly, wasn’t it?” Sherlock responded sternly. “All luggage is supposed to be labeled with your name.” He pulled a tag and a pen from his pocket, making sure the kids were still flowing out the door. “What’s your name?” he asked professionally.

“Anya,” she answered. “Petrovich.”

“Anya Petrovich, from St. Sebastian’s,” Sherlock repeated as he wrote it out on the tag. He used the Valley script, of course, but when he showed it to the girl she saw it as Cyrillic and nodded. “There you go,” he went on, affixing it to the handle. “May I take this now?” The car was nearly empty aside from the final children who were limping towards either end. “It seems rather heavy to me. I promise it will get to your room safely.” After a moment of deliberation she released the case, with bravery if not confidence, and Sherlock sent her on her way to the door.

The adults who had stayed behind left as well, then the Darkwood members. “Car 1, final sweep,” Sherlock requested. Then he noted _Anya Petrovich from St. Sebastian’s, age ~9_ on his list.

“What are you doing?” John wanted to know, peering around his arm.

“Making a list of the children I might want,” Sherlock replied matter-of-factly. The way John stared at him, though, made him start to frown, his mind racing to analyze the problem. “It’s understood we get first pick, isn’t it? Someone told me that, I think. Who was it?” He tried to think back.

“Well, I _guess_ it’s understood,” John hedged, “but, you know, you shouldn’t _actually_ keep a list. Like, really, a written list?” He took the tablet hopefully and saw that it was, in fact, an actual list.

“Why shouldn’t I keep a list?” Sherlock wanted to know, utterly perplexed. He didn’t doubt that John’s interpretation was correct, but clearly, society shouldn’t work that way. “Am I just supposed to _remember_ them? I couldn’t possibly.”

“Sherlock, you can’t just—make a wish list of children like they’re books you want for Christmas,” John tried to explain to him. Sometimes these concepts were difficult to get through to his husband, especially when he thought he was the logical one.

“Well, it’s not totally up to me, of course,” Sherlock conceded experimentally. “I would run them by Irene first. And you.” Pause. “Oh, I guess Molly, too.” John rolled his eyes. “And there could be other compatibility issues, too,” he went on, seeing that he hadn’t quite hit the target. “Like if this last girl had a brother who was sixteen, I suppose we couldn’t have her.” Their eldest child was fifteen, and they weren’t supposed to take in any children older than that. John sighed with resignation and Sherlock got a bit peeved. “Well, your reasoning, or lack thereof, is ridiculous,” Sherlock judged. “So I _shouldn’t_ make the list?”

“No, make the list,” John claimed.

“You just said I shouldn’t.”

John smiled suddenly, which helped Sherlock to calm down a bit. “I think people were expecting more of a mental list, or no list at all, just getting first pick of kids that met our criteria,” he finally explained, once he was able to think it through. “But if you see specific kids _now_ , I guess you might as well make a list.”

“How else would it work?” Sherlock insisted. “The children will likely reach the Valley before we do, and if there’s no list, they might give them away to someone else!” John just sighed and shook his head, having more faith in the servants who divvied up the children than Sherlock did, apparently.

“Weird?” Sherlock guessed reluctantly.

“A little.”

“Too much?”

John thought it over as they moved, then replaced, the barricades again. The vehicle build-up was quite impressive. “Not too weird,” he finally decided.

The stamp of approval set Sherlock’s mind at rest on the subject. “Good. Let me know if you see any you like,” he added, which for some reason made John sigh.

The third and last set of three cars had rolled into position and Sherlock sprang into Car 1 at the signal. Then he froze. If he’d been following the pattern, he could’ve guessed what he’d be staring at right now, but obviously he’d been concerning himself with other, trivial matters. He turned to look at John, who was covering his smirk with his hand. Then he turned back to the jabbering, squealing, giggling crowd.

“I’m Sherlock Ivanov,” he called, attracting little if any notice. “Who’s—is there anyone in charge here?” His eyes lit on a teenage girl in the second row. “Are _you_ in charge?” She looked alarmed at the assumption and swiftly pointed him further back, towards more nuns. He carefully picked his way down the aisle, trying not to tread on anyone, which was a bit difficult as some of them were crawling on the floor. “Sister--?”

“Sister Maria Angela,” she introduced, and he bowed slightly.

As he had feared, there were about ninety children aged three or four on the car, and about ten teenage girls helping to look after them. He made a note that someone else should take the girls’ names, because being trusted by the orphanage this way probably spoke well of their characters. No one had additional mobility issues, at least.

“Alright, we’ll want them to go out one of the doors on _this_ side,” he explained, “and follow the arrows to the ship. They shouldn’t carry any bags, we’ll get them later.” He glanced around at the nearest children, who seemed to be wearing their coats upside down, hats on their feet, and shoes on their hands. Well, the trip from Moscow had probably been rather dull. “They’ll need to be ready to go outside,” he finally said. Fortunately Sister Maria Angela seemed to know what he meant.

Sherlock headed back up the aisle. John had already netted a few of the children and sent them back to their seats. Energy wouldn’t be a problem here. “Car 1, we need some buddy ropes,” Sherlock requested. “Ten, I think.” They had space for ten children each. “And have the dogs ready.” Probably unnecessary—they were _always_ ready—but it couldn’t hurt.

John retrieved the buddy ropes that were brought to the door. “You should see what they’re dealing with in the other cars,” he murmured to Sherlock, his tone suggesting they had it easy.

Sherlock took the first buddy rope and stared back at Sandy, making sure she’d gotten some as well. “ _Car 1, ramps are ready_ ,” they heard over their earpieces, and Sherlock turned his gaze on the first group of children. The teenage girl he’d spoken to earlier was trying to get them all properly attired for the outside, a thankless task especially when they promptly undid her work.

Sherlock crouched down, suddenly at eye level to the children and more in their worldview. “This is a _buddy rope_ ,” he explained to the first couple who seemed interested. “Have you seen one before?”

“It’s a walking rope,” supplied one little blond girl.

“Is that what you call it? Well then you know how to use it,” Sherlock encouraged. “You hold on to this loop here,” he went on, prompting the girl to clutch the offshoot from the main rope, “and you hold on to this one here,” he instructed a small boy of the loop on the opposite side of the rope. “Now you two are buddies. You have to keep an eye on your buddy. And if your buddy ever lets go of the rope, you know what you must do? You must scream really, really _loud_!” This pleased the children greatly and they readily grabbed onto the rope as Sherlock tugged it more into the open space beside the door. It held five children on a side and filled up quickly.

“You come here and be the leader,” he said to the first teenage girl, as John helped set up the next rope. “Follow the arrows, head for the ship,” he reminded her. A dog would probably follow her to make sure none of the children slipped away unnoticed, but that would take too long to describe to her. They started marching out the door and down the ramp.

A shriek, followed by a giggle, rent the air and Sherlock looked back to see an expression on John’s face usually reserved for dealing with _him_ , a sort of strained patience. “No, no, you must always hold onto the rope,” he was admonishing one little girl. She let go again and her buddy promptly screamed, right in John’s face, and then both little girls giggled hysterically.

Sherlock smothered a grin and stomped over with a stern expression on his face. “What’s going on here?” he demanded, and the children froze at his authoritative tone. “Is someone not holding the rope?”

“Yes, we have a not-holding-roper here, I’m afraid,” John admitted regretfully. Right now both halves of the troublesome pair were clutching the ropes for dear life.

“Will we have to send her to the _back of the line_?” Sherlock asked, trying to make the possibility sound a bit sinister.

“Well, it looks like she’s doing alright now,” John hedged, taking on the good-cop role. “It might be okay.”

Sherlock gave the entire collection of children a narrow look. “Well alright. Send them on their way!”

John stood hurriedly, instructed the next teenage girl on where to lead the ten youngsters, and got out of their way. “We won’t be adding them to the list, will we?” he muttered to Sherlock, who shook his head.

Finally the last little buddy rope trooped down the ramp, heading for the ship. “They look rather like giant millipedes,” Sherlock observed thoughtfully. John squinted trying to see it; it wasn’t the first metaphor he would’ve come up with. “Anyway, should be the end for a bit,” Sherlock noted, his step lighter as they walked down the ramp. “Car 1, final sweep.”

“ _Negative, Car 1_ ,” came the unexpected answer. “ _Car is not clear. Passenger remaining_.”

Sherlock and John glanced at each other in surprise, then bolted back up the ramp. “Watch the doors,” Sherlock ordered as he scanned all the seats and the overhead luggage racks. He made it down to the opposite end of the car without seeing anyone and turned back to John with a questioning look. The other man shook his head. Sherlock rapped on the lavatory door and then pushed it open, revealing no one; same with the storage closet at that end. Then he heard a low whistle and turned to see John pointing downwards, roughly in the middle of the left row. Of course, their small quarry would go to ground, he supposed, and he dropped to the floor and peered _under_ the seats.

Finally he caught a glimpse of someone and headed towards them. They moved in response and John tried to block. After several tense seconds they cornered what turned out to be a small, frightened boy.

“It’s alright,” John told him in a soothing tone. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

“What’s your name?” Sherlock asked him. “I’m Sherlock, and this is John.”

“Grisha,” he finally sniffled.

“Come on out now, Grisha,” John encouraged. “Don’t you want to go to the boat?”

“No!” the boy asserted forcefully.

“You want to go back to the orphanage?” Sherlock suggested in confusion.

“My mama told me to wait there,” he confessed to them. “She told me to wait there and she would come back in time for my birthday. Only it’s already past my birthday…” he added in a small voice.

Sherlock and John glanced at each other. They knew that any child with a decent possibility of being placed with a family, or returning to their original one, would not have been sent on the train at all. “Well, come on the boat, and have something to eat,” Sherlock tempted him. “Aren’t you hungry? I’m sure you must be hungry.”

Slowly Grisha crawled out from under the seat and let Sherlock pick him up. It wasn’t hunger that drove him, though. “I want my mama!” he cried desperately, wrapping his arms around Sherlock’s neck.

“I know, I know you do,” Sherlock assured him thickly as John quickly led the way out of the car. “We’re going to find you a mama. And a papa, too. Ones who won’t ever leave you alone somewhere.”

“ _Car 1 interior teams, assist with Cars 2 and 3_ ,” the coordinator instructed intrusively.

“I’ll go,” John offered. “You’ll take him to the ship?” He hardly needed to ask.

Sherlock carried the boy across the concrete and onto the pedestrian area, joining the masses of children streaming in from all directions. He could’ve set the child on his feet at some point but experiments showed Grisha was unwilling to let go and Sherlock wasn’t too keen on it either. He took the farther, less-used wooden ramp up to the entrance on the side of the ship, then followed the ramp down inside, into the darkness. It was disconcertingly pitch black but only for a second, and then his next step inexplicably deposited him in an interior hallway far below deck—warm, cozy, and teeming with children Grisha’s age, some of whom Sherlock recognized from the train.

Finally he set the boy on his feet, though he didn’t stray far. “Well, this looks like a nice place,” Sherlock insisted. “Look, there’s some nice toys over there. Why don’t you go play with the others?” Grisha looked up at him nervously. “Go on, it’s alright.” He could see the boy relaxing under the calming atmosphere the servants had provided and finally he wandered away.

Immediately Sherlock pulled out his tablet, only to find that John had already put the boy on the list, with a star next to his name. If they kept going on like this, Sherlock noted ruefully as he headed back outside, they’d have a dozen kids picked out before the end of the first day.

The cold air jolted him back to reality and he hurried back to the train to see if help was still needed. Car 2 was apparently full of toddlers and infants who couldn’t walk much, if at all; they were being extracted from the car by means of a conveyor belt, and then adults would pick them up and set them in baby buggies and carts for transport to the ship. Car 3 contained the majority of the mobility-challenged children—those in wheelchairs, with crutches or canes, leg braces. Some had full-scale developmental disabilities as well. They were being slowly guided down the ramps at either end and transferred to wheelchair convoys, and Sherlock jumped in to steer one to the ship. It was not as mindless as he had imagined; pushing from behind it was hard to see who or what was in front of him. He figured the servants wouldn’t let anyone come to harm, but he didn’t want to act recklessly either.

He pushed the line of four wheelchairs up the ramp onto the ship and then pulled on it to keep it from going down the other side too quickly. This time he found himself in the hospital wing, where other people stepped forward to take over. With another step he was back in the entrance and found an empty cart to push back to the railway car.

All the children with health issues would soon be cured. Living in the Valley all his life, injury and disease were basically unknown to Sherlock, existing only as phantoms in books set in other places. Abstractly he understood their concept, but not their reality; it was like worrying about the cleanliness and availability of his drinking water. He just didn’t have to. But for other people in the world these were daily worries.

No more for the children who came to the Valley, though. They would all be fixed. He didn’t worry about the morality of that, about what standard they were being ‘fixed’ to; that sort of thing was for philosophers who couldn’t find any other hobbies. The servants were going to do what they wanted anyway.

He pushed the empty cart back, watching the slow, one-by-one extraction, people coaxing the children down the ramp, making sure they didn’t roll too quickly. What they needed, Sherlock thought, was another conveyor belt. Maybe a long one that rolled all the way onto the ship. Why not? Start level with the floor of the railway car and very gradually slope downward; then make it a straight people-mover to the ship. Children could just sit there in their wheelchairs, or stand—perhaps with someone to help them—and roll right on inside. Actually, you could have three of them, one for each car, even for children _without_ mobility issues. Well, that was probably a bit much, he decided, picturing a pile-up as all the tracks converged. But one, for certain kids en masse, that could be useful.

Finally the last two cars were clear. The ramps and carts were pulled back, and Sherlock helped retract the barriers again. It was about 8AM now and traffic had started to pick up; the temporary parking area was packed full as only infallible servants could arrange, and the vehicles scattered directly across the railroad tracks as the train disappeared around the bend. All the trains coming in today were from Moscow; the older teens who weren’t coming to the Valley would travel back via cars and buses, along with the orphanage workers going back to their largely-empty places of work. All day there would be trains, and more tomorrow, every day in fact—they were the most efficient way to bring children to the dock, from all the areas that were closer by rail to St. Petersburg than to Arkhangelsk in the north or Novorossiysk in the south. On the other side of the Ural Mountains were three other designated ports, each with a Darkwood ship receiving their precious cargo from the western expanse of the country. This one train had brought nearly a thousand children, and they had managed to move them all to the ship in about an hour and a half.

Unfortunately, the second train had left Moscow only an hour after the first, meaning they were already falling behind, and had little time to change things before train number two insistently steamed into place, having already been waiting for half an hour.

“ _Try to move them along faster_ ,” the coordinator suggested, “ _especially the older ones. Give instructions right away to the whole car instead of talking to the adult first. Ramp teams, your new ramps are ready_.”

Now the ramps fanned out more as they sloped down, so once kids got through the bottleneck of the actual doorway, they could move more freely. Perhaps someone _was_ able to implement helpful changes quickly, and Sherlock began looking around for more ideas to suggest. But, it would be unwise to use the other two doors on each car, the ones facing the parking lot; even if you prevented the kids from wandering off in the wrong direction, it was difficult for them to pass between two train cars—whatever time you gained by sending them out two more doors would probably be lost as one by one they climbed up and down ramps over the train car couplings. The windows didn’t open far enough to climb out of, either, unless it was an emergency. If they could somehow open the entire side of the car and let the children stream down over it, that would be ideal. But of course, that was ridiculous.

Try to move them faster, Sherlock thought to himself as he trotted up the new ramp. He stepped onto the new car and looked around, John behind him, and tried not to look too alarmed by what he was seeing. Children coughed and squealed, babies cried, and tired eyes stared at him bleakly. “Mixed group,” he reported blandly in Common. “All ages.” Sandy added something about seeing wheelchairs at her end. Sherlock’s gaze danced decisively over the crowd, assessing, calculating. Then he plunged in.

“You’re going to walk out a door on this side,” he announced, pointing. “Front or back. Follow the arrows, head for the ship. Leave your luggage.” They didn’t seem to have much of that. “Take your coats.” Few of those, too. “Come on, get up, get ready,” he prodded, and they finally started moving.

“Dismiss individually,” he conveyed to Sandy. “Have olders guide youngers, slower wait. Make sure they have coats.” He wouldn’t send a child across the dock in the thin hand-me-downs they were wearing. He started with the first seats on the right. “You and you,” he told two teenage girls, regretting the necessary generic address. “Put these on.” Sherlock pulled two balls of white fabric from his pocket and, yanking a loop, showed how they unfolded into ponchos emblazoned with the Darkwood tree. A simple over-the-head garment with a hood, its thinness belying its warmth. “Can you pass these out to everyone?” he asked, handing them a bag he’d inexplicably pulled from his pocket as well. “Walk down the aisle and help people put them on. Go on, thank you.” They were not the most enthusiastic of helpers.

“Alright. You and you,” Sherlock went on, to another pair of girls who were maybe twelve. “You take _them_ out the door, alright?” He matched each with a young child from across the aisle and scooted them towards the door. “John! Coats.” Then he turned his attention to the next set of children, pairing teenagers with toddlers or infants and tweens with more mobile youngsters. “Come on, get up, out the door!” he urged repeatedly. To others he abruptly said, “No, stay here, wait for the end.” It was not the most sensitive way to treat children who had already been disadvantaged by physical problems, but they couldn’t have everything right now.

“Everyone who’s still here, start to move towards your door!” he called out. “Make sure you have a coat before you go outside!” John and Paul were handing them out liberally from a seemingly inexhaustible supply. Sherlock took a quick survey of the remaining passengers. “Less mobile coming out,” he warned the ramp team. “Still a few infants.”

“ _Bring the infants to the ramp, carts are waiting_ ,” someone from the ramp team said, so Sherlock inelegantly climbed over the seat backs to bypass the aisle, retrieving one infant in a carrier at a time and climbing back to deposit them in easy reach of John, who waited for a gap in the now slow-moving line to hand the baby over the side of the ramp. Then he went back for the next one Sherlock had left.

The climbing made John nervous, though. “Could they be picked up in the final sweep?” he wondered aloud. Then they would be transported instantly to the ship along with all the personal possessions that were too unwieldy to let children carry themselves. But if infants could be taken aboard via sweep, why not _all_ the children? At least all the very young and mobility-impaired. Where would you draw the line? The more energy used by the servants to do these ‘magical’ things, the more the voyage cost.

Of course, the Valley _was_ getting upwards of 150,000 new children out of it, practically all at once. And the Valley _loved_ children.

“ _All cars, unattended infants will be removed during final sweep_ ,” the coordinator relayed to them all, so Sherlock switched to using his climbing skills to outfit all the wheelchair and crutch-using children with ponchos. He could see John was astounded that his suggestion had been accepted and implemented—and so quickly, too!

The two of them ended up on the widened ramp, taking turns walking up and down it, along with members of the ramp team, aiding the unsteady children coming down. The ramp had to start at a certain height, level with the floor of the railway car, and slope down from there to the ground; it was not steep for the fully mobile, and it was better than the narrow stairs for the impaired, but wheelchairs could run away on it if the owners weren’t careful. Still, it was faster than other methods they’d experimented with, like lift platforms and crane swings.

From the brief glances Sherlock gave to the other cars, he could see they had the same disorganized mix of children. This was one of the state-run orphanages, he recalled, and clearly not one that had bothered to follow their instructions. It was what they had been warned about: nominally they would all do as the government directed them to do, but some with corrupt leadership would try to undermine the process somehow—perhaps by not allowing the children to keep the coats the leadership had paid for. Petty and cruel, but they figured—correctly—that the Darkwood people wouldn’t bother complaining about them as long as the children arrived.

Sherlock felt they’d taken less time to clear the car than before, but he didn’t have a chance to check as they retracted the barriers to let the vehicles through and allow the train to move forward. He was also busy thinking of ideas, any ideas, to speed things up. “What about having dogs on board?” he suggested to John. “They could herd children along, or prevent the ones who need to wait from moving.” He had been frustrated by how many children had failed to obey his directives at first and ended up clogging the aisles.

“Some kids are scared of dogs,” John countered—another thing that had surprised them that morning, with small children screaming and crying as the friendly, professional Darkwood dogs had tried to push them along.

“I think it might be worth the risk,” Sherlock opined. “Any chance we could use those emergency exits on the roof?” he mused. “Maybe with a ladder, and a slide…”

“I think you have a better shot with the dogs,” John replied dryly.

“Or a people-mover conveyor belt—two of them, maybe—that rolls the children right out the door and across the dock onto the ship.”

“Maybe we could fix a track to the ceiling and attach each child to it with a hook,” John deadpanned, “and automatically move them all out the door that way.”

“No, that would take too long to set up,” Sherlock dismissed, not picking up on the sarcasm. “Hey, can I get about four dogs to help me on Car 1?” he requested, deciding this was the best option.

“ _Granted, Car 1_ ,” the coordinator told him, displaying no reaction to the idea. Four mid-sized dogs, with their Darkwood tree vests, padded over attentively.

They were using a lot of dogs here today, to do simple herding and guarding tasks so the humans would be free for more complex things. It was apparently simpler for the servants to temporarily make the dogs more obedient and intelligent, than it was to do these tasks themselves, or carry more adults on the ship. They didn’t really _have_ that many dogs, or other pets, in the Valley because they didn’t breed them there; unlike people, whose fertility issues were cured when they came to the Valley—after all, Darkwood wives generally gave birth to ten children—for most animals it was the opposite. Special permission had to be obtained to allow animals to breed in the Valley and it was usually only granted for scientific purposes. So, a great many of those coveted pets had been volunteered for service on this project—but they were also collecting unwanted animals on this trip, and no doubt the current animal owners might get some positive payback for their generosity.

When the next railway car was in position Sherlock and John climbed aboard, two dogs following them and two following Sandy and Paul. They found the same mixed, leaderless crowd.

Sherlock plunged in, handing ponchos to the children in the first row. “Put these on, then go out that door,” he told them. Follow the arrows. Make sure they go,” he told the first dog, who watched the children attentively as Sherlock went on past. “You come here, and take him,” he instructed, matching a young child from one seat with a teen from another. “You take her, you go with him, you carry this one.” Behind him the first dog was encouraging the children from the first seat to move towards the door, where John took over. “You wait until the end,” Sherlock told a girl with a cane. “You make sure people stay put if they’re told,” he ordered the second dog. It hopped up on the seat beside the girl, not just to keep an eye on her but also to survey the rest of the seats. “Put on this coat. Go, out the door. Follow the arrows. Carry him with you. Leave that here, we’ll bring it later. You wait until the end.”

Sherlock reached the middle of the car and turned to look back, pleased to realize the car was nearly empty. “Everyone who’s been told to wait, go to the doors now,” he instructed. The dogs trotted quickly out of the way.

“Did you see what’s out there now?” John asked in amazement. “Look, after they come down the ramp they get on your conveyor belt! It takes them all the way to the ship.”

Sherlock stared out one of the windows in astonishment. “How long’s it been there?” he wanted to know. “Do they use it for everyone?”

“No, just the low-mobility, I think,” John replied. “I didn’t notice it until just now, anyway.”

“Huh,” Sherlock remarked. Then, “I thought of that.” Which John had already acknowledged, but it seemed worth noting again.

“The dogs worked well,” John commented instead as they exited the car.

“I thought so,” Sherlock agreed matter-of-factly. He expected everyone would be using them next.

One more car to go on this train; then, another one would pull in. They hadn’t quite made up for all their lost time yet—the disorganization of this train hadn’t helped—but they were getting close. Still, this was only train number two of at least eight expected today. Not to mention all the trains expected over the next two weeks. They would need all the innovation they could get to keep things moving.

**

The short bus, a battered white, rolled slowly forward through the gate and stopped where Jason stood with his hand raised authoritatively. He slapped a red magnetic circle on the side, then climbed aboard, followed by a servant who quietly took over the duties of the curiously compliant driver. Meanwhile Jason glanced over both the assembled children and the notes that popped up on his tablet. A woman whom he might have called young if her face weren’t so hard watched him expectantly, then rose the instant he glanced at her.

He bowed slightly. “I’m Jason Smirnov,” he told her.

“Mariska Petrovich,” she informed him stiffly, “from the St. Petersburg State Children’s Home in Walsk district.”

Jason nodded politely. “You have about twenty-five teenagers on board, all fully mobile?” he checked, relying on what she’d told someone while outside the gate.

“Yes, they’re all fourteen,” she reported. “We were told to send them first, before they turned fifteen…” She seemed very strict about her commitment to following the rules, which Jason could appreciate. “Will we be unloaded soon?” she pressed on. “We were here at nine, but the traffic—“

“Yeah, we’ve had a lot more traffic than we thought we would,” Jason assured her cheerfully. The bus rolled forward a couple of slots and Jason held onto the back of a seat until they stopped. “What we’d like is for the kids to get off the bus here and walk up to the ship,” he went on. “It’s kind of a walk, but better than sitting here waiting to drive closer.”

“Walk?” the woman repeated with disapproval. “How far is it?”

Jason turned to look out the windshield of the bus, contorting himself slightly. “You can see it up there,” he pointed out. “See the blue canopy? That’s right over the entrance to the ship.”

Mariska Petrovich did not like this plan. “That seems very far to me.”

“Oh, they’ll be okay, lots of younger kids have walked that far,” Jason insisted in an upbeat tone. “There’s benches to sit on if they really get tired, and carts going back and forth. It’s a little chilly out there, though,” he went on, pulling one of the balled-up ponchos from his coat pocket, “so they might want to wear there.” He yanked on the tab that unraveled the ball into a cape with an attached hood, then handed it to a girl in the first seat. “It goes on over your head—there you go.”

Blithely he started chucking the balls to other kids. “It’s a coat, pull the loop!” he suggested. He turned back to Mariska Petrovich, who did not like things being thrown on her bus. “So why don’t we get started? You and the driver should come on the boat, too, have something to eat,” he invited.

“We have to get back to the home and bring the next group of children,” she countered stiffly.

“Ah. I see.” He’d heard that today, St. Petersburg was a city with no buses or vans to be had—every single commercial-grade vehicle had been rented, mostly by local orphanages trying to get their kids to the docks in the most efficient manner possible. Apparently this group had only managed to score one small bus. “Do you drive?” Jason asked her. “You might be able to borrow someone else’s bus around here. You can ask Manny once the kids are unloaded.” He indicated the servant at the wheel.

This idea seemed to catch her somewhat by surprise, which was novel in itself. “Well—perhaps,” she finally replied, and Jason gave her a big grin.

“Great! Well, let’s get this show on the road, okay?” He briefly switched to Common Tongue. “Jason, small bus, twenty-five mobile teens. Ready to disembark.”

“ _Jason, proceed to disembark_ ,” the coordinator allowed through his earpiece, adding less formally, “ _And go faster next time_.” Jason rolled his eyes slightly at this; he was well aware of how important it was to keep the operation flowing, but these weren’t cattle to be unloaded en masse. Even with cattle you’d spend a few minutes chatting with whoever brought them, or so he imagined from the Westerns he’d watched.

“Hey kids!” Jason announced in a louder tone. “You’re gonna get up and leave through this door, and walk to the ship, okay? Follow the arrows. Leave your stuff here, we’ll get it at the end. Anyone who didn’t get a coat, get one from me on the way out.” With that he hopped back down the stairs and stood on the pavement beside the open bus door. “Come on, let’s go, blond girl in the front, let’s go!” He imagined Mariska Petrovich was giving them a few final words of advice, even though they’d been told to make their good-byes before leaving the home.

Finally the first one came down the steps, grimacing as the chill air hit her face. “Right that way, move along,” Jason encouraged snappily, pointing to the large white arrows painted on the ground. “Don’t mind the dogs, they’re here to help. Come on, don’t look so glum,” he pattered as the kids exited at a slightly faster pace. “The ship is nice and warm, there’s hot food, you can read or play some games with the other kids—Hey, hold on there.” Jason briefly cut across the line to draw one boy off to the side, allowing the others to continue unimpeded. “I said to leave your stuff behind, pal, we’ll get it later,” he reminded the boy, indicating the suitcase he clutched.

“I don’t mind carrying it,” the boy insisted possessively.

“Okay, fine,” Jason shrugged, letting him pass on. It would be more work to pass the suitcase back onto the bus at this point anyway. And as Jason had mentioned, there were benches set up for kids to stop and rest on, and other Darkwood people were bicycling carts back and forth, picking up kids and objects too—not enough for that to be a main mode of transport, but hopefully enough to gather up the most weary and burdened kids, who’d gotten up early this morning after what was probably a sleepless night. A sleepless _few_ nights.

The flow slowed to a trickle and Jason climbed back onto the bus, seeing the last couple kids off. “Okay, Manny will drive you to the exit and we’ll clear the baggage,” he explained to the orphanage worker. “Ask him about getting a second bus, or a bigger one, there’s several just sitting in the parking lot. See you again soon!” Once more he left the bus, the doors closing for the final time.

At the wheel Manny expertly pivoted the unwieldy vehicle out of line, smoothly avoiding another vehicle coming up in the second lane, and maneuvered it past the temporary parking lot to the exit. Having the servants drive all vehicles on the dock was costly but oh so effective; Jason could only imagine the traffic snarl otherwise, with dozens of independent drivers trying to figure out where to go.

Once the bus was gone—was it a buslet, perhaps?—Jason glanced around the dock assessing the situation for a moment, then walked back towards the gate. His assignment was always the first slot inside the gate; but with vehicles often in motion, it could be tricky to decide which vehicle that was. “ _Jason, brown car with tan roof_ ,” he heard over his earpiece. Fortunately the coordinator was always there to help.

“I would’ve called the roof taupe,” he countered dryly, approaching the vehicle. He slipped another red magnetic circle onto the side of the large, old car and bent down to look in the window at the driver. “Hi, I’m Jason Smirnov,” he greeted.

The woman was thirtyish and blond, and had obviously been crying. There were four children in the car, all roughly between five and twelve; and they weren’t exactly cheerful either. He glanced discreetly at his tablet before continuing.

“You can just let the kids out here,” he told the woman. “It’s faster for them to just walk to the boat.”

“Oh. Let them out here?” she repeated with disappointment.

“They’re all okay to walk, right?” Jason checked, keeping his tone bright. “You can come with them, come on the boat and look around.”

“I can?”

“Yeah, sure!” Jason enthused. “Have something to eat. Manny will park the car for you.” The bland-faced servant appeared helpfully at his elbow.

Obviously this was a private citizen, a parent maybe, making the heart-wrenching decision to send her children away so they could have a better life; Jason was careful not to say that on the boat, she could also say a longer good-bye to them if she wanted. He didn’t want to make her any more emotional than she already was. He didn’t like to see people unhappy. But then again, he wasn’t exactly a disinterested party—her loss was his gain, in a sense.

“Yeah, come on, come onto the ship,” Jason pressed. “You can all walk there together. Manny will get your luggage, you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Well, okay,” the woman decided after a moment, unbuckling her seat belt.

“Okay!” Jason stepped away as the back door on his side opened. “Okay, kids, come on, time to get out. Stay on this side. You can leave that, we’ll get it for you. Here, let’s put this on,” he added, dropping a poncho over one boy’s head. “There, you’ll be warmer now. Here’s one for you, too.” The kids were old enough to more or less understand what was going on, which could make things difficult. “Just follow the arrows,” Jason told them briskly, trying to get them moving along. “The dogs are friendly, they’ll keep you on track. Manny will park the car for you.”

The woman took a child’s hand in each of hers and began walking towards the ship, determined but depressed. Jason was supposed to tell people, “Thank you for bringing them,” but he judged it unwise in this case. It would be too much of a reminder of what she was losing. Someone else would said it to her on the ship, when she finally left.

He was just about to look for the next vehicle when his earpiece crackled to life again. “ _Jason, can you go outside the gate and help?_ ” He was already moving in that direction before the explanation came. “ _A bus broke down outside and they’re trying to get the kids inside safely_.”

Jason held up his hand to stop the car that wanted to roll through the gate—and over him—and the driver honked impatiently. He ignored this. “I see them,” he reported, noticing the straggling line of children tramping through the mud on the side of the highway, some of them dragging suitcases or smaller children. They would have to cross the line of cars that were trying to get inside the dock, and that would be tricky. “Let’s get some carts and buggies up here, just inside the gate,” he summoned. They could use the relief of not having to walk yet further to the ship.

“Okay, you kids come across now,” he ordered a handful who had stopped tentatively at the edge of the gate. “Come on, quickly now.” The car he was blocking honked again and Jason turned his gaze on the driver, going for bemusement as the kids scuttled across the road behind him—do you enjoy honking, sir? Because clearly I’m not moving on your say-so.

Jason saw that group of kids were clear and he stepped aside, outside the gate, gesturing for the car to go ahead finally. The driver had a few gestures for _him_ , too. Whatever kids or animals he was bringing them had a lucky escape, Jason thought.

A few more kids staggered up to him and he stopped them on the roadside, trying to analyze the traffic pattern. “Let’s just wait here for a minute, kids. Here, put this on. Here’s one for you.” Some of the kids had gotten ponchos earlier and some hadn’t. He saw some Darkwood members waiting with carts just inside the gate, and it looked like the next car in line would be sitting in place for a few minutes. “Okay, I’m sending some more across.” Again, he stood in front of the car while the kids passed behind him, though this driver had better manners. Then he went back to the curb to collect another group.

“Is this the best strategy?” he asked in Common Tongue. “How many people are out here?”

“ _Trip and Malcolm are getting the kids off the bus and making sure they stay off the road_ ,” the coordinator told him. “ _We’ve sent extra dogs out and the servants say they can bring the bus onto the dock and fix it later. With the mud and the traffic there’s not much else we can do_.”

Jason escorted another clump of kids across the street. “Is anyone processing the vehicles out here?”

“ _Not at the moment_.”

“Well maybe we could—Wait here, don’t cross the street,” he ordered the next group of kids. “Just got a dump and run, young,” he announced, hurrying as best he could through the mud to two young children who had just been let out of a car that was now speeding away. He grabbed the toddler who was about to wander off and pressed the crying older child against his leg. “Can we get anyone else out here?” he asked, trying not to sound too demanding. Resources were stretched thin as it was, even on just the first day. “Is the bus almost empty? Hey, can you take her for me?” he asked a teenager from the bus. “And can you hold his hand? Thanks. Okay, we’re going across now.”

“ _I can be the crossing guard_ ,” said a new voice over the earpiece, and he looked up to see Casey passing the kids in the opposite direction. He joined her on the curb when the kids were clear.

“You’re not supposed to be on duty yet,” he pointed out.

She gave a little smile and a shrug. “Seems like you guys could use some help. Go on, walk down the road and look for more kids,” she encouraged.

He was reluctant. “Well… be careful of the cars, they don’t like being stopped,” he warned her. “And for the buses—walk around and talk to the drivers, they won’t be able to see you—“

“Jason, I’ve got this,” she assured him, firmly.

“I guess you do,” he admitted, not without hesitation, and finally left her to tramp down the side of the road. A few car-lengths’ down he encountered some more children who had come from the bus. “Here, let me carry you, sweetie,” he said to one little girl, tears of exhaustion streaking her face. They had probably been up since early that morning, traveling, worrying, wondering. “Where are you kids from?” he asked conversationally as they picked their way towards the gate.

“District 2 State Children’s Home,” answered one of the older ones promptly.

“Is that in St. Petersburg?”

“Soldvosk,” the boy corrected him. That was one of the outer suburbs, to the north.

“Ah. Well, it’s not far now,” Jason encouraged, steadying one child who stumbled. “You’ll go through those gates there, and then walk down the dock to the ship. You might even get to ride there in a cart,” he added, with somewhat forced cheerfulness. “Then you can relax, on the ship.”

“We’re really going to Darkwood Valley?” asked one boy, hope and fear mingled in his tone.

“How old are you?” Jason countered. You had to be careful not to make promises that couldn’t be kept.

“Twelve.”

“Yes, you’re going to Darkwood Valley,” Jason assured him. “There’s a family waiting for you there, with lots of brothers and sisters. And no one ever goes hungry or has to be afraid of someone hurting them.”

“Is it warm there?” asked the little girl he carried.

“You can always be warm inside,” he promised. “In the winter it snows, but the rest of the year is warmer.”

“How could there be enough families to adopt all these kids?” asked another boy skeptically. Jason got the sense they’d been talking about this; he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. “You can’t even find Darkwood on a map, it must be really small.”

Everyone who was working with the public on this project had been extensively trained on how to answer tough questions, especially from the kids. “You can’t find Darkwood Valley on a map because we don’t _want_ to be found,” Jason tried to explain. “If no one can find us, then we’re safer.” This seemed to make sense to the children in an elemental way. “But there’s lots and lots of people in the Valley. And they have lots of kids, and they always want more to take care of.”

They reached Casey’s station on the curb and Jason set the little girl down, awkwardly as she wanted to cling to him. “Come on, sweetie, let go now. Casey will get you across the street.”

“I will,” Casey agreed, for Jason’s benefit as well as the kids’. She gave him a pointed look and he resumed his duty of walking along the roadside. Trip and Malcolm approached with another group of kids, looking mildly aggravated.

“Last ones?” Jason asked hopefully in the Common Tongue.

“From that bus, sure,” Trip told him with a sigh. “But I have a feeling this is going to keep happening.”

“I thought vehicles would be kept better maintained,” Malcolm wondered. “If you’ve _got_ a vehicle, surely it’s worth it to take good care of it?” Of course none of them could really comment on that; there were no motorized vehicles in the Valley, except a few that were hobby projects. They weren’t actually needed to get around.

“Listen, why don’t you guys work inside the gate for a while,” Jason suggested to them, “and I’ll process vehicles out here for a while. Casey can help,” he added when they weren’t immediately convinced. But working inside the gate would get them out of the wind and the mud, dealing with people who were slightly mellower than the raw drivers on the road.

The offer was tempting to them, and for once the coordinator didn’t object to a decision made without him, though he did sigh rather loudly. They exchanged magnetic discs and Casey and Jason each took charge of the next unassessed vehicles. Things just went faster the more information they had.

Jason’s was a school bus and he knocked politely on the doors, hopping up the stairs energetically when they creaked open. “Hi, I’m Jason Smirnov,” he said to the driver, while also glancing over the crowd of children for any authority figures. “Um, who’s in charge here?”

“Well, it sure ain’t me, buddy,” the driver grumbled. He turned around in his seat and shouted, “Shut up, I’m talking!” The kids were not especially responsive.

“What orphanage are they from?” Jason asked him. Surely he ought to know that, at least.

“District 7 State Children’s Home.”

Jason noted that information on his tablet. “About how many kids are there, would you say?”

The driver sighed, but he wanted to be helpful, Jason could see. “About sixty, I guess.”

“Did you happen to notice if there were any in wheelchairs, with canes, etc.?”

“Yeah, there’s a few at the back,” the driver recalled. “They had to load ‘em through the back door.”

“And what about really young kids, like under five?” Jason asked. “Toddler, babies?”

The driver gave him a look. “Can’t you hear them?” he commented dryly.

“Good point,” Jason conceded. He wrote ‘no authority figure’ in the notes box. “Well, I’m gonna send you to the express lane,” he informed the driver. “Just keep heading slowly for the gate, and when you get there someone will point you to the right lane. We’ll unload the kids and you’re welcome to take a break on the ship.” With that he left, affixing a light blue magnetic circle to the side of the bus. That would make sure it was sent to the lane where other Darkwood people would help get all the children off individually, including those with limited mobility, and they wouldn’t have to walk very far to get onto the ship.

He saw, with faint amusement, that Casey had already done two cars while he was on the bus. Their black magnetic discs indicated they would have to wait in the regular line. The car behind the one Casey was working on honked impatiently and Jason skipped making a comment to her in order to attend to it. An older man was at the wheel, his face twisted into a permanent scowl, and there was a teenage boy in the passenger seat beside him. In the backseat was a teenage girl, holding a baby.

“Hi, I’m Jason—“

“How long is this going to take?” the man demanded gruffly after rolling down his window.

“We’ve had a much bigger response than we expected,” Jason replied in an upbeat tone. “You’ve got a baby there, so I can put you in the express lane. Once you get up to the gate—“

“I’ve been sitting here for over half an hour waiting to get to the gate!” the man snapped. There were some additional words he said that didn’t translate very well; Jason assumed he was cursing.

“Well… do you want to let them out here?” Jason was not supposed to make that offer lightly; but if it was the difference between getting kids, or losing kids when the adult lost patience and drove away with them—getting the kids always won. It was better to do it while he was standing there, also, rather than risking a dump and run. “You can just let them out here if you want. I’ll take them in.”

The man gave him a narrow look, as if wondering if this was a trick, then agreed. “Fine. Well, get out,” he added harshly to the boy.

“Get out on the other side, away from the traffic,” Jason advised the teens, more kindly. He signaled to one of the dogs, who obediently placed his front paws on the hood of the car in the hope this would keep it in place as Jason went around to the passenger side. The man did not like this at all, but Jason didn’t trust him to not drive off in the middle of unloading.

“Okay, come on, sorry about the mud,” Jason encouraged the teens. “Sorry, I can’t open your door, sweetie, it’s a rule.” They didn’t want to start any rumors about ripping unwary children out of cars.

The girl opened her own door and then Jason could reach in and help her by taking the baby. It was definitely an odd group, but they got a lot of odd groups from the outside world. The teenage boy further helped the girl—his sister?—out of the car, and the driver began honking again.

“Come on, hurry up!” he insisted.

Jason ignored him. “You have bags?” he asked the teens. “Here, you hold her, and I’ll help with your stuff,” he went on, handing the baby back to the girl.

The boy retrieved a few things from the backseat. “Open the trunk,” he told the older man stonily.

“I’ve wasted too much time already,” the man replied nastily. “Shut the doors! Get rid of this dog!”

“You wanna argue or you wanna get this over with?” Jason told him mildly. “Come on, open the trunk.” Muttering obscenities the man complied, and Jason left the passenger doors open, hoping the biting wind chilled him. The kids had decent coats, anyway, and only one small suitcase each that he pulled from the trunk. “Anything else?” Jason asked the teenage boy, who shook his head. Jason summoned the dog away, then let the boy close the two passenger doors—hard. There would be no tearful good-byes here, apparently, as the older man immediately swerved the car out of line and took off. “Thanks for bringing them!” Jason called after him anyway. “What a charmer. Okay, let’s head for the gate,” he encouraged the teens, before explaining the situation to the coordinator.

The teens were not happy as they trudged through the mud; the girl cried softly, the boy looked furious. “So how old are you guys?” Jason asked conversationally.

“I’m fourteen, and she’s thirteen,” the boy replied tensely.

“Really?” Jason would’ve guessed older, but maybe they had to grow up fast. “Well, that’s great, because you’re both definitely going to the Valley, then. And the ship—it’s nice and warm, there’s plenty of food…” He could see the usual sales pitch wasn’t going to work on these two. “Look, just based on what I saw with that guy, I’m guessing your lives so far have been pretty tough,” he said candidly. “But everything’s going to change now, for the better. Just take it one step at a time and you’ll see.”

“One step at a time,” the boy muttered under his breath, darkly.

“Can I still go to the Valley if I—if I—“ The girl broke off and looked guiltily at the baby she carried.

Jason was beginning to understand a bit better. “Is that _your_ baby? It’s fine, you can still go to the Valley,” he assured her. “You can keep the baby with you when you’re adopted, you won’t be separated.” This seemed to relieve her a tiny bit. “Are you brother and sister? You’ll be adopted together, you won’t be separated either.”

“Who would want us,” the boy responded bitterly.

“Hey, don’t talk like that,” Jason chided him, lightly. “There’s a family that will be thrilled to have you, all three of you. What’re your names?”

“Jovan, Nastia, and Zuzu,” he replied, indicating the baby.

Jason tried to commit them to memory—not that he would for sure adopt them himself he would want to talk to all his ladies first and see if the servants thought they’d be compatible—but he was definitely interested in keeping track of them, at least. “There’s a family waiting for you,” he said again, sincerely. “Just—I know it’s tough, but hang in there. You’ll feel a lot better once you get to the ship.”

They arrived at the gate, where Jason stopped the next car before it could roll forward. Trip was waiting just inside and Jason passed the suitcases to him. “Take care,” he told the teens, as they crossed inside the dock. They were angry and scared, and he couldn’t blame them; but their new lives would be so much better. He didn’t really expect anyone to believe that just because he said it, though—they would have to find out for themselves. He stepped back to let the car pass, then headed back down the highway to find the next vehicle to process.

**

John lay in bed curled up next to Sherlock, listening to the other man’s steady breathing and heartbeat, to the comforting creak of the ship around him, maybe even to the lapping of the water against the hull, unless that was part of a dream he was having as he finally drifted off to sleep. It was not difficult getting to sleep these days, not after eight to ten hours spent herding children from trains to the ship. To think that some people worked this hard every day! He didn’t mean to be a dilettante about it; it just made him grateful for the life he’d be going back to soon. Well, in another week.

“I miss Molly,” Sherlock said suddenly, and John’s heavy eyelids popped open.

“Did you say something?” he asked in a low voice, in case he’d been dreaming again.

“Yes.”

“Oh. What was it?”

“I miss Molly,” Sherlock repeated, confirming that this was not, in fact, a hallucination. Probably, John would’ve imagined it being said in a different tone. “She has a very distinctive laugh,” he went on. “She doesn’t like it very much.”

“I know, I’m married to her,” John reminded him, trying not to smile too much. He didn’t want to discourage his husband’s unusually reflective mood.

“It would be nice to hear it,” Sherlock continued. “The world would be very grim if nobody ever laughed.” John almost laughed at that, considering how serious Sherlock sounded as he said it.

“You should tell her that,” he suggested instead. It would mean the world to Molly.

“We can’t communicate with the Valley,” Sherlock countered, as though this should be obvious.

John tried not to let exasperation wake him further. “I mean when we get back.”

“Oh.” This did not seem to have occurred to Sherlock. “It might not be true by then.”

Sometimes John didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at his husband. “Maybe you could write it down, and let her read it when we get home,” he tried sleepily.

“I’m not going to _forget_ ,” Sherlock scoffed. Then he paused to think. “Do you think she would like to know?” he asked, genuinely uncertain. He depended on John to help him out with these things.

“Mm-hmm,” John muttered. “Definitely.”

Sherlock glanced down at him and tugged the blankets up further. “You should go to sleep,” he suggested unnecessarily. John was way ahead of him on that one.


End file.
